Get Up Stand Up

The poetic devices in Bob Marley’s “Get Up, Stand Up” are many including repetition, rhyme, and syntax. For most of the song, the last syllable of every other line rhymes, but sometimes in the verses this fundamental structure is altered. Marley employs many common phrases in his song such as “not all that glitters is gold,” “now you see the light,” and “you can fool some people sometimes, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.” Marley attacks the traditional theological idea of heaven being somewhere else other than on earth partially by using hyperbole to exaggerate this position, but he does this essentially through argumentation, though not through symbolism.